There is no question about the importance of a positive customer experience. A customer’s experience when dealing with your business is what forms much of their opinion about your product or service. And when we break down the customer experience, we understand that it is more than outreach and marketing.
The customer experience is essentially the relationship your business has with its customers. However, customer interactions with a business continue to evolve and transform as technology provides new ways of doing business and communicating. Everything from point of sale to return options to customer support has evolved.
Staying up to date with these technologies and avenues of communication are important. And yet, staying up to date doesn’t have to be difficult. Managing customer engagement simply needs to be a part of your business operations. In fact, there is a term for such a process, known as customer experience management.
What is Customer Experience Management?
Customer experience management is the method through which a business or operation tracks, measures, and organizes interactions with customers. This is typically done through a blend of strategies, technologies, or other implemented processes.
Ultimately, the goal is to improve customer relationships and customer satisfaction, as well as generate customer loyalty to the company. This, in turn, can benefit the company in many ways. But we can get into that a bit more later on. First, let’s discuss some of the ways that a company can implement customer experience management strategies into their workflow.
CEM As Opposed to CRM
To be clear, a customer experience management strategy is different from a customer relationship management strategy. Though both are common terms when it comes to improving customer satisfaction, they are not interchangeable.
On one hand, customer experience management (CEM) focuses on monitoring and improving the experience for the customer. On the other hand, customer relationship management (CRM) is more focused on customer data and metrics.
While they both deal with improving customer support and business longevity, customer experience management deals specifically with the customer experience.
Customer Experience Strategies
There are many great things about implementing a customer experience strategy. One is that it does not come in a one-size-fits-all model. There are all sorts of customer experience tools and platforms that are designed to be tailored to your needs.
Think about it this way—Your business is unique. Additionally, your customers are unique, and the methods through which they interact with your business are unique. Therefore, why shouldn’t your customer experience strategy be unique as well? The fact of the matter is that it should be.
If you sell a product, for example, then you have customers ordering from your site, or perhaps visiting your store. This is different from being a doctor and overseeing a medical practice. If you operate a medical facility, then your customers are coming to you with different needs.
In these examples, customers are looking for different things. They have different concerns they are dealing with.
Overall, the entire customer journey is unique. A way to improve the customer experience is to identify the particular needs of your customer. Once identified, implement customer experience management tools in place to support these factors.
If you run a medical facility, then you likely have customers reaching out to make appointments or ask questions. Certainly there are all sorts of platforms and portals through which patients and doctors can share data and information. However, these should not be relied on alone. Specifically, it is important to remember the human element of any customer experience.
There are many instances in which a patient wants to call and have a conversation about their situation. Having a dedicated answering service in place, for instance, can address this and demonstrate how customer-centric your practice really is.
And yes, this might seem like a simple situation. In fact, it is! But one that is beneficial.
Having an answering service means more than making sure your phones are being answered. It means having a dedicated service of trained professionals who know how to provide personalized experiences. Additionally, it means gaining a better understanding of your customers’ ongoing needs.
By having human interaction with your customers, you can be better prepared to address their needs. This is an effective example of putting customer experience management to work. And in this way, a customer experience management strategy is an ongoing process.
Customer Feedback Relates to Customer Satisfaction
An important factor of any customer experience management strategy is customer feedback. Customer feedback occurs in various ways. Some organizations request customer feedback as part of their customer experience management strategy. They hear what their customers have to say and then implement this feedback to improve customer satisfaction.
But customers are providing feedback whether you have a system set in place to receive it or not. Remember that peer-to-peer feedback and reviews are more popular than ever. Social media has made it so customers look and see what others are saying and recommending.
In this way, social media can be a powerful customer experience management tool. Additionally, it doesn’t require you to shift your business operations to monitor. Simply put, by paying attention to what customers are saying, a company can stay updated with their customer satisfaction.
By responding to these posts and gaining more information, a company can then take steps to improve its customer experience.
Customer Retention
By improving your customer service, you can keep your customers coming back. Remember, a happy customer is a loyal customer. Because of this, it is important to constantly focus on improving your customer satisfaction, and the overall customer experience.
This means having a customer experience management strategy in place.
Schedule an appointment today to see how a professional answering service can benefit your business.
